For 2,000+ Mile Round-Trip Drivers Only! (III)

[dvczerfs]

CHeese balls!!!! Never leave home without them. Nothing like the orange stained fingers pulling into the rest stop!!!

 

[WeLoveLilo05]

Wondering what that will be like! Anyone ever done it? We would be driving back home to Jersey, taking I95, leaving WDW probably 5ish. Are we crazy? I am actually rethinking this trip and maybe doing the very end of September but IDK if I'd want to take my daughter out of school for 7 days.

 

[Nik's Mom]

We always pack a cooler full of snacks for road trips. I buy a multi pack box of mini oreos, chip ahoy, and nutter butters, I also have pretzels and plain crackers. For drinks, we have tons of bottle water, and some capri sun juice.

 

[sharadoc]

We stop at Subway in the morning for a breakfast sandwich, at the same time we pick up a sandwich for lunch since they make those that early in the morning also. Put the lunch sandwich in the cooler and now we don't have to look for someplace to eat on the way down.
Day before I make a batch of brownies and we cut into slices and individually wrap each one with saran wrap.
I bring chips in those Park popcorn buckets - yellow lid is potato chips, orange lid is fritoes, purple lid is brownies, red lid is the pretzels, green lid is the Mios, etc. The popcorn buckets protect the chips and the different colored lids lets me know what is inside without having to open each. Also helps keep the chips fresh down in humid FL.
I bring a bunch of Iced Vias to turn our bottled water into iced coffee.

I love the idea of using park popcorn buckets. That's a great idea and is a better use than markers! We have a few unused ones that are just put away as souvenirs. I'm taking them out for the next trip.

 

[preschoolmom]

CHeese balls!!!! Never leave home without them. Nothing like the orange stained fingers pulling into the rest stop!!!

Like! That's total road trip food!

 

[dvczerfs]

bagel w/cream cheese & jelly for the early post midnight snack (we depart around midnight)

peanut butter & jelly sandwich

[We might pull up to a fast food restuarant's drive-in window for breakfast if it's at a time when we are getting gas.]

turkey & swiss sandwich

fresh cut fruit + bananas

100-calorie bags of snacks

lots of canned and bottled beverages (iced tea, lemonade and Red Bull) in a cooler


All the best.

red bull!!!

 

[dvczerfs]

Like! That's total road trip food!

im not sure if i would give them to little kids in the car, eeeeeverthing in arm reach would be orange stained.

Our must-haves: peeled hard boiled eggs, individual M&Ms bags, bottles of water, some sort of nuts, regular and flavored (honey wheat, mustard) pretzels, granola bars, bananas. We don't like to eat meals, just graze.

hard boiled eggs!!! great idea sharon!!! me and hard boiled eggs, tammy will love you.

 

[sharadoc]

im not sure if i would give them to little kids in the car, eeeeeverthing in arm reach would be orange stained.


hard boiled eggs!!! great idea sharon!!! me and hard boiled eggs, tammy will love you.

Some folks don't have strong physical reactions to HB eggs, and others politely wait until rest stops or at least open air

Never a good idea in a closed vehicle if you have a sensitive stomach!

 

[BC1836]

red bull!!!

It's the alternative to coffee and soda, which I don't drink. Our one-way drives include only two Red Bulls, maximum.
Expecting to consume a pair of 'em next weekend!

All the best.

 

[Disneyholic]

DH & I make one final stop on the way out of town. We stop at WAWA and pick up a cappachino each (in our WAWA refill cups) and fill our our big WAWA jug with a good coffee and get packs of sugar from the coffee station. We then go over to the milk section & pick up a flavored creamer.

We might also pick up some final snacks if something catches our eye on the way to the register. We usually have sandwiches made ahead of time, but if we didn't have time we will pick some up there, too.

 

[valleygirl]

Hi Everyone,
I'm so glad I found this forum as I'm planning our first drive to Florida during April vacation. Since this is my first post here, let me introduce myself - my name is Maura and I'll be driving from Boston with my 72 year old mother and 17 year old daughter. The purpose of the trip is actually to visit Savannah College of Art and Design as well as Flagler College, but I can't imagine driving to Florida and not visiting WDW so I'm trying to fit at least a short visit into our plans. We'll be leaving Boston at 5:00 or 6:00 am on Sunday, April 15th and driving to Roanoke Rapids, NC, where we'll spend the night. This departure time should put us in the DC area early to mid afternoon. Will we run into a lot of traffic in this area on a Sunday afternoon? Any other areas that could present problems driving on a Sunday? Monday morning we'll leave Roanoke Rapids and drive to Savannah, probably spending 2 nights there and then heading to St. Augustine to visit Flagler on Wednesday morning. That's as far as I've gone with my planning. I'm thinking of staying one night in St. Augustine and then maybe heading to WDW for 2 nights before heading home on Saturday morning, stopping for the night in Roanoke Rapids again. Any thoughts? Thanks for your input.
Maura

 

[nono]

Wondering what that will be like! Anyone ever done it? We would be driving back home to Jersey, taking I95, leaving WDW probably 5ish. Are we crazy? I am actually rethinking this trip and maybe doing the very end of September but IDK if I'd want to take my daughter out of school for 7 days.

1. Which day of Labor Day weekend are you thinking of leaving WDW to head back to NJ?

2. Which 5? a.m. or the p.m.?

Once we know the particulars, maybe someone on this thread can help more!

 

[dvczerfs]

It's the alternative to coffee and soda, which I don't drink. Our one-way drives include only two Red Bulls, maximum.
Expecting to consume a pair of 'em next weekend!

All the best.

bc, how long are you going for and where are you staying?

 

[artemis4]

Welcome fellow cheesehead! South Central, so Madison area? I'm from the Sheboygan area. Our plan is slightly different than yours. I do much better waking up early than I do staying up late, so we'll be leaving home no later than 4:00 am Saturday morning. We'll drive until we get south of Atlanta, hopefully around 7:00 pm. Then we'll leave Atlanta after breakfast and continue on to Orlando. Since we won't get to Orlando until Sunday afternoon, we're getting a non-Disney hotel for the night before we check in to our Disney resort Monday morning. I haven't given much thought yet to the return trip. That one will actually be a little dicier since we'll be leaving Anna Maria Island on Wednesday, so we'll have to worry about midweek traffic in Atlanta, Nashville, and the other big cities we'll be going through. We won't have to worry about that on the way down since that entire drive will take place on the weekend. But that just gives me something to plan, which is half the fun for me anyway.

I love to plan too. I love the challenge of anticipating how things will go and planning for the contingencies. I'm such a geek.

We are not in Madison, but not too far away. We are hoping to do our morning break around Kennesaw, GA. I have an old friend there, and she tells me it is a 12 hour drive from her home to Madison area, as she has been doing this drive for years. We are planning to go down through IL, heading down on 39 from Rockford to 74, then to 57 to 24. We'll break near Kennesaw from about 7 am to ~11 am for DH to nap, for us to avoid Atlanta at rush hour, and the kids to burn off some energy. Then we'll drive a few more hours to where I plan to stop for the night. The drive back will be different, but if we make it from WDW to Kennesaw on day 1 of the return tip (~6.5 hours), we can spend the night at my friends' house. We can do 12 hours on day 2 of the return trip or break it up into a 3 day trip home. I'm keeping that part of the trip flexible, even though I'd enjoy nothing more than planning it as well.

 

[BC1836]

bc, how long are you going for and where are you staying?

One week at the Grand Floridian Resort.

All the best.

 

[dvczerfs]

One week at the Grand Floridian Resort.

All the best.

sounds good!

 

[Dis_Dreamin]

Deer sausage!!!

Now yer talkin! That's an awesome idea. I wish I had some to take on our next trip.

CHeese balls!!!! Never leave home without them. Nothing like the orange stained fingers pulling into the rest stop!!!

As a member of the Disdads club, that will very likely have to be in our van on our upcoming trip. Which reminds me, I'm gonna have to get some drop-cloths to put down in the van around the kids to protect the carpet. LOL!

 

[Gumbo4x4]

Now yer talkin! That's an awesome idea. I wish I had some to take on our next trip.

When we run out, we head down to the local butcher & get some hard Sommer sausage. No venison in it, but still good stuff Slice it up before ya go though

 

[disneymarie]

Hi Everyone,
I'm so glad I found this forum as I'm planning our first drive to Florida during April vacation. Since this is my first post here, let me introduce myself - my name is Maura and I'll be driving from Boston with my 72 year old mother and 17 year old daughter. The purpose of the trip is actually to visit Savannah College of Art and Design as well as Flagler College, but I can't imagine driving to Florida and not visiting WDW so I'm trying to fit at least a short visit into our plans. We'll be leaving Boston at 5:00 or 6:00 am on Sunday, April 15th and driving to Roanoke Rapids, NC, where we'll spend the night. This departure time should put us in the DC area early to mid afternoon. Will we run into a lot of traffic in this area on a Sunday afternoon? Any other areas that could present problems driving on a Sunday? Monday morning we'll leave Roanoke Rapids and drive to Savannah, probably spending 2 nights there and then heading to St. Augustine to visit Flagler on Wednesday morning. That's as far as I've gone with my planning. I'm thinking of staying one night in St. Augustine and then maybe heading to WDW for 2 nights before heading home on Saturday morning, stopping for the night in Roanoke Rapids again. Any thoughts? Thanks for your input.
Maura

Do you have a AAA membership? I would suggest getting a good plan, have your car gone over no matter how new. Fluids, airconditioner, tires. Great GPS, and you will perhaps fight with it any way.

But most of all, is having a loose plan on paper. Get the trip tic, and also read the Internet, which one helped me a lot was the exits off 95. As far as DC. We left a weekday, and drove about 3PM through there. THere is a bit of construction and only slowed us; BUT that was not a Sunday.

Also, our trip took us down 81, 83 to 15 into the I 95 branch.

This will be our repeat trip in the Fall. We have gone by Plane, Train and automobile and all have the pluses and down falls; pros and cons.
I know you are bouncing a bit, but did you consider taking the train for part of the trip and renting a car for part?

I really liked this part of our trip, but that was auto train. I was thinking if you could get a deal on the train at least to the southern part, then renting a car for the rest of the leg would be easy on the driving, and wonderful way to view the country and go over the finds on the way home.

Just putting it out there. AAA has a discount on the train too. With reward points this may be a way that your dd can travel home too.

Good luck on the traveling and school scouting. AND Welcome to the board of travel of the all great and knowledgable.
di

 

[disneymarie]

Hello dvczrfs,
Just got back last Tuesday, flew out of Harrisburg direct to MCO, uneventful except we wanted to change dates and extend the trip with a gf that flew in from CA that I had never met face to face. If we drove, I could have changed our dates in a heartbeat to spend more days with her family.

Just Me, dd, ds and dgs. So the flights came to $800. Better then the gas and hotel of 2 rooms for us. Stayed at the Pop this time.
Weather was cooperative, 80* all week and I think it rained on Sunday when we were at HS, off and on, mostly on.....
Best weather we have had in 12 years!!!!!
But the week flew so fast. Especially as those great deal of flights were the 8:00PM arrival and 8:30 AM leaving so technically lost two days of park time.

SOOOoooooo we are driving the trip in Sept. Labor day we are cruising out of NY to Bermuda.Late Sept is ds birthday, and we will celebrate it there.
My dh and son's ex will be going this time. She misses the dgs when he is gone and the AP will be up in Oct. Cost of flying will be just too much with two rooms.

This will be our last trip for a year or maybe even two.
Work has not been generous to the Scranton Office and hoping for new management or my own PI business to escalate to get the funds to travel.

But, I am already into planning the trip's for Sept.
Safe travels and beautiful weather for all.
di